Constantly Risking Absurdity
by icepixel
Summary: Concerns the Astaire/Rogers film Shall We Dance from 1937 . After the movie ends, Linda and Peter still have some loose ends to tie up.


**Note:** Although the film appears to take place in the late fall or early spring, I ended up moving it to summer, or at any rate to an unseasonably warm night, because hypothermia is really not that romantic.

The title is from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poem of the same name.

* * *

"Perhaps it would be proper to say that they are a couple who know that their feet are on the ground at the beginning of the dance and will return there at the end of it. They have, in this movie's [_Flying Down to Rio_] imagery, a way of being in the air which is not like flying in an aeroplane (it depends neither on technology nor money) and which makes the ordinariness of sitting down together possible, or bearable. They are content to sit because, from their dancing, they—and we—know that they are, or can be, more than this." — Edward Gallafent, _Astaire and Rogers_, p. 16

*

After the curtain call, she might have lost him in the crush of chorus girls, ballerinas, critics, reporters, and everyone else who felt a need to be backstage and in their faces. But Peter kept an iron grip on her hand after their bows and, ignoring the clamor around them, turned to her with barely-contained glee. "You came back," he said, his voice full of wonder.

Sure now that she had made the right decision, Linda smiled back at him. "Yes, I did."

Whatever he was going to say in response was obliterated by the gossip columnist who squeezed up against them, pen at the ready, and exclaimed, "Petrov and Linda Keene together again! It's all so romantic. Tell us how you got back together."

As she was speaking, Jeffrey appeared beside them, taking Peter's hand and shaking it vigorously. "Petrov, that was wonderful!" he crowed. "The audience loved it. They went wild over the last number, even when—oh. Hello, Miss Keene." He regarded her as he might a piece of gum stuck to his shoe. She gave him a smirk that didn't quite disguise the sneer underneath it.

By that point, another gossip rag reporter had made it to her side. "Linda Keene and Petrov together again!" she cried, the tip of her pen already touching her notebook. "It's like a fairy tale. Tell us all about it."

"Butt out, Cholly," said the first columnist. "I got here first; this is my story."

Cholly Manhattan edged toward her rival. "That toilet roll of a weekly you write for? No one'll see it. Everyone reads Cholly Manhattan!"

"Not after I print this story they won't!"

"Why, you little minx..."

Jeffrey chose that moment to stick his oar in. "Ladies, ladies, let's not be hasty. There's enough of Petrov for everyone. Why, just ask—" he stuttered to a stop, his mouth gaping as he stared at the space where Peter and Linda had, just moments before, been standing.

While the two columnists were arguing, Linda had tilted her head towards the dressing rooms—one of which, all the dancers knew, also contained a staircase that eventually let out in an alley at the back of the building. Peter had certainly not required any convincing, and together they had snuck away from the brewing turf war.

They snaked their way through the crowd, dodging anyone with a notebook in their hands, and were but a few feet from the dressing rooms when a man smoothly stepped in front of them, blocking their entrance to the hall with casually outstretched arms. "Petrov. Miss Keene," said Edwin Bailey, dance critic for the _N__ew York Times_, nodding to each of them. "You can't possibly think I'd let you get away without a statement for my article."

Peter pointed to the side. "Look! It's Penny Carroll and Lucky Garnett!"

"What?! Where?" Bailey shouted, turning his head and taking a step in the direction Peter had pointed.

The moment he did, Linda led the way through the slim opening his movement had created, and they dashed down the hall, Bailey's cries of outrage echoing behind them. He wasn't quite fast enough to catch them before they had darted into the small, unused dressing room that led to the outside and locked the door behind them.

As the critic pounded on the door, Linda and Peter leaned against it, twin sighs of relief escaping their lips.

She soon turned her head to look at him. "Am I going to be hiding from reporters with you for the rest of my life?"

That expression he'd been wearing earlier returned. "Oh, I do hope so."

Suddenly uneasy, she glanced away. "Arthur has a key to this room," she said. "We should get out before Tarzan out there makes enough racket to draw attention."

He looked at their outfits, and the dance shoes they were both wearing. "We're not exactly dressed for wandering around the city at midnight."

"Do you want to go back out there?"

Bailey began to pound on the door with renewed strength, and yelled something indistinct about how his editor was going to hear of this.

"Point taken," Peter said, and followed her to the stairs.

Fifteen flights later, they arrived at the street. "Well," said Peter, "where now?"

"There's an all-night diner a few blocks away Arthur and I sometimes go to after a show."

"Won't that be the first place he'll send the newshounds look for us?"

She winced. "You're right. He'd never let a chance for publicity pass him by."

He glanced back up at the building they had just exited. "If we stay here, they'll definitely find us. Let's try and find something else open."

"All right. The diner's that way." She waved her hand to her right.

"Then let's go this way." He took her other hand, and they headed left.

The only light on the streets came from overhead lamps and the occasional headlights of a passing car. Everything else was shuttered for the night: shop windows were dark and quiet, and most of the city's citizens in bed. Black clouds were piling up in the sky, blocking out any light from the moon.

They passed a block in silence before Peter finally said, "Lady Tarrington has gone back to France."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I understand she got on the first ship out the very night that you left."

"I see."

He stopped suddenly and faced her in the yellow pool of light from a streetlamp. "Linda, I know what it looked like, but honestly—"

"I know. Now." She smiled shyly. "But at the time—you had to know how bad it looked."

He shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, I do. Forgive me?"

She ducked her head, the combination of joy and embarrassment she felt turning her cheeks red. "After that love letter you choreographed, what else could I do?"

He squeezed her hand. "I never thought I'd see you behind one of those masks, but I can't tell you how glad I am you were."

They beamed at each other like dopes for a few moments. Overhead, the clouds thickened, and a few raindrops fell.

"Why _did_ you come back?" he asked, looking unsure and hopeful all at once, as if he'd just remembered that the last time they'd spoken, he'd managed—however inadvertently—to send her into hiding for three weeks, and that however nicely this was going so far, there might still be some repercussions waiting to hit.

"Because..." She paused, not wanting to drag the real reason into this moment, although eventually they _would_ have to talk about their circumstances. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter now."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "I came back to serve you with the divorce papers, but by now I think they're probably well on their way to a landfill somewhere."

His face lit up. "You mean you aren't going to—"

Before he could finish, the storm broke open the sky with a crash of thunder, sending a torrent of rain down on them.

The rain would drench them in short order if they didn't move, and so they ducked for a shop entrance, huddling for a few moments under its inadequate protection. With the wind that was blowing, the shortness of the overhang did practically nothing to keep the rain off of them, and soon they were soaked through anyway. Wet nylons were certainly one of the less pleasant sensations in life, Linda reflected.

Then again, they could have been suffering interrogation by a dozen reporters and critics. Compared to that, being caught in a rainstorm wasn't so bad. She'd had quite enough of the press for one lifetime.

All the roof was doing was concentrating the rain into a little waterfalls aimed straight at their shins. The street started looking pretty good in comparison. Besides, if they kept walking, surely there would be somewhere open where they could go inside and dry off. Until then—well, at least it was a warm night, and now that she was completely instead of partially saturated, she felt paradoxically drier.

Peter seemed to felt the same way, for he soon stepped back out onto the sidewalk and tilted his face up to the sky, apparently enjoying the rain pelting his face. Her shoes squishing, she joined him. "Arthur and Jeffrey aren't going to be pleased," she observed, brushing the sodden netting of her hat back from her face.

"Yes, I think we're going to get quite the talking-to after tonight," he agreed.

"You care?"

"Not in the least." He grinned and spun through a puddle that was starting to form. "There's a song about this, isn't there? Came out a few years ago."

"'Singin' in the Rain,'" she said. "From that Lockwood and Selden picture."

He whistled a few bars of the tune, tapping along to the beat with his foot. Even with the noise of the rain, they could hear the taps on his shoe ring against the concrete. Delighted with the idea of actually tap dancing in the rain, she joined him, kicking her toe and heel with a pleasing clang against the sidewalk, matching the rhythm he'd set and then adding a flourish of her own. He copied her, gleefully splashing water from the puddle on both of them. It quickly turned into a competition, each of them matching the other's steps and then challenging their partner with a new embellishment. They traded moves from ballet and Broadway, and she was shocked anew at how well the man she'd once characterized as a "simpering toe-dancer" could swing.

It only ended when he grabbed her around the waist and twirled her through the puddles, their taps and breathless laughter echoing down the street. Her dress might have been weighted down with rain, but she felt like she was flying.

They finally whirled to a stop when they reached the corner, nearly running over a man walking the opposite direction, safe and dry under an umbrella. He smiled benevolently when they apologized, talking over each other in their exuberance.

"Quite all right, quite all right," he said. "It's good to know that even rain like this doesn't dampen lovers' spirits." He eyed how close they were standing to each other, and the way Peter's hand rested almost possessively on her back. "Newlyweds?" he asked.

Linda's breath caught in her throat, and she looked at Peter. He looked conflicted, as if an answer was on the tip of his tongue, but he wasn't sure if he should voice it or not.

She didn't want to divorce him, she knew that much, but was she ready to be married to him? By objective standards, she barely knew the man. What if this absurd situation they'd found themselves in couldn't translate to reality?

The feeling of flying came back to her. Every time they had danced together, even if it was in the park or on a boat or down the street in the rain, she had felt like she could leave the ground and soar as long as he was with her. Surely this meant something.

"Yes, we are," she said.

The man said something congratulatory before going on his way, but she didn't hear it. She was watching Peter, who looked about half a second away from breaking out into joyful song. The rain, which for all its intensity was low on endurance, was slackening almost to a halt, and she could see him more clearly in the light from a streetlamp.

Suddenly he dropped to his knees, holding her hands tightly in his. "Linda, will you marry me?" he asked. He appeared completely serious.

What on earth was he doing? she wondered. "I already married you."

"I know, but I never got to ask you. I'd like to propose to you at _some_ point, even if it's not in the right order." He shook his head lightly to keep a raindrop from rolling into his eye. "The middle of a rainstorm wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I suppose it has a certain charm."

"Yes."

He nodded, then did a double-take. "Yes, it's charming or yes, you'll marry me? "

She grinned at his confusion. "Yes."

He raised an eyebrow. "Now you're mocking me."

"Mmm-hmm." She joined him on the sidewalk, curling her legs under her and leaning against him, shoulder to shoulder. The concrete was damp and cold, but she was with him, and she didn't mind.

"Come here," he said softly, and pulled her close. Almost a month after they'd married, Linda kissed her husband for the first time, and thought that maybe it wasn't so absurd after all.


End file.
